Fact check: Rep. Liz Cheney voted against Trump's positions numerous times during his presidency

BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAY
·4 min read
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The claim: Liz Cheney voted with Donald Trump 100% of the time

Days after being voted out as Wyoming's sole House of Representatives member, some social media users claimed Republican Rep. Liz Cheney's election loss was retribution for a single vote against now-former President Donald Trump.

“Liz Chaney (sic) voted with Trump 100 percent of the time,” read the beginning of an Aug. 20 Facebook post that was shared more than 150 times in a week. “Denies the big lie and voted to impeach a crook and gets voted out. Says a lot about this Republican Party.”

But records show Cheney voted against Trump’s positions more than a dozen times throughout his presidency. They differed on topics including appropriations legislation; imposing sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea; and a measure to override Trump's veto of a 2020 defense bill.

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USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the claim for comment.

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy., vice chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, questions Cassidy Hutchinson, a top former aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, as she testifies before the committee in the Cannon House Office Building on June 28, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy., vice chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, questions Cassidy Hutchinson, a top former aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, as she testifies before the committee in the Cannon House Office Building on June 28, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

Cheney voted against Trump's positions about 7% of the time

Though Cheney supported Trump’s positions an overwhelming majority of the time, there were numerous occasions when she voted against his policy preferences – including well before Trump's 2021 impeachment charge.

FiveThirtyEight, a politics-focused website developed by statistician Nate Silver, said Cheney voted with Trump 92.9% of the time he was in office from 2017 to 2021. Her votes clashed with Trump's positions 13 times, according to the website's tally.

The website reported their first difference came less than four months into Trump’s term, with Cheney voting against the 2017 fiscal year appropriations bill.

Cheney issued a statement saying she voted against the bill because it only contained half of the $30 billion Trump requested for military funding.

“I could not support legislation that provided wholly inadequate funding to begin to rebuild America’s military,” Cheney said.

Later in 2017, Cheney voted in favor of imposing sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea. Trump released a statement saying the bill was "seriously flawed – particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch's authority to negotiate." But Trump said he nevertheless signed it into law “for the sake of national unity."

More: Liz Cheney is weighing a 2024 presidential bid. Here's how the Wyoming Republican got here.

Toward the end of Trump’s time in office, Cheney voted in favor of overriding Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act in late 2020. In a press release backing the bill, she said it was needed to ensure hazard pay for military families, guard against cyber attacks and take measures against China.

Then she voted to impeach Trump on a charge of incitement of an insurrection following the Jan. 6th, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

As reported by USA TODAY, Cheney said her vote to impeach Trump stemmed from her view that he "summoned this mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack."

"There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," Cheney said.

Trump was later acquitted by the Senate. Cheney went on to serve as vice chair of the House committee created to investigate the Jan. 6th attack.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that Cheney voted with Trump 100% of the time. FiveThirtyEight reported Cheney voted with Trump about 93% of the time, but the two clashed on topics including Russian sanctions, appropriations legislation and a measure to override Trump's veto of a 2020 defense bill.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: False claim Liz Cheney voted with Trump 100% of the time